XXX: State of the Union

Alameda Naval Base, CA I am suited up head to toe in Marine camouflage. Flak jacket, check. Fake grenades, check. Helmet and M-16, check. Sort of. The M-16 won't fire but is camera-ready: it looks real and if you take if off the movie set, it will be treated as real and you should be prepared for people to freak out. 

I am crossing off a bucket list item today: appearing in an action movie. Sure, I'm a lowly background extra, but that doesn't diminish the thrill. Plus, no lines to forget!

Authenticity is critical today as we are representing a counter-terrorist, elite black ops platoon. To sell this bad-assery, the costume dept has ex-military fashion police scanning our looks for accuracy. I am taken aside and scolded because my pants are not bloused properly with respect to my boots and my laces are not tucked in. I smile as I re-arrange them because I AM IN AN ACTION MOVIE.

Our set is the second level of the aircraft carrier USS Hornet docked in Oakland, CA. Its size cannot be overstated. If you were to materialized here, you would assume you were in a military warehouse, not a ship. Lined neatly on its polished and shiny concrete floors are dozens of tanks, trucks, and airplanes all housed under a monster ceiling of criss-crossing girders. Imagine a high school gymnasium.Triple the smell and place nine of them laid end-to-end lengthwise. 

My big scene is where the military is mobilizing for a massive assault. There are Marines and Navy boys scurrying around, including a random assortment of jeeps and armored personnel carriers with armed crewmen hanging off the side. I am manning a 7mm turret gun on an APC. 

We shoot for 15 hours and it amounts to 3 scenes for a total of 4 minutes of total screen time. Favorite  prop: w-a-a-a-a-y at the flank end of the ship where the camera can barely register a pixel are three super-sized tanks that could each fit a Toyota RAV4 inside. From the camera's angle, these tanks look enormous and menacing. They are 10 feet tall, drab green, with impressive turrets on them. Upon closer inspection, they are hollow plastic with no moving parts except their over-sized shopping cart wheels to move them around. 

Setup for the cool shot of the day: Ice Cube, that debonair triple agent, steals one of our tanks and is attempting to escape in it. The room is smoky. a tank's rumble can be heard and suddenly Marines are scattering in every direction. "Go! go! go!" they call as the flaming tank bursts into the foreground and out of frame. it was incredibly cool. they had to shoot it 4 times. the first two the timing was off for the stunt men, the 3rd time the tank ran out of gas. I did not get a chance to speak with Mr. Cube. He was hustled off in his Town Car the instant his scenes wrapped. He probably needs some time to warm up to me.